


Chocolate and spice and all things nice

by Gilli_ann



Category: Brokeback Mountain (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Family Fluff, Light Angst, M/M, Reflection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-27
Updated: 2016-02-27
Packaged: 2018-05-23 01:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6100333
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gilli_ann/pseuds/Gilli_ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>While Alma and the girls are baking cookies, Ennis reflects on the good things in his life – and the limitations.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chocolate and spice and all things nice

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Jack, Ennis and Brokeback Mountain  
> belong to Annie Proulx, Diana Ossana, Larry McMurtry and Focus Features. I make no profit and intend no copyright infringement.
> 
> This was originally posted as an anonymous entry in a BBM Chocolate fanfic contest.

  


Ennis came home to a sweet domestic scene.

Alma was baking cookies, a big batch for the church picnic. The girls were fluttering excitedly around her, helping their mother, and sneaking chocolate chips out of the bowl every time she happened to turn her head away.

Junior and Jenny grinned at him with lips stained brown and sticky, - cheeky cocoa-colored smiles.

Those had to be milk chocolate chips, he figured, their favorite kind. They were wild about them. And Alma probably had much more than the recipe required. She would be prepared for some chocolate thievery, although pretending not to notice.

He pecked Alma dutifully on the cheek, sat down next to the girls, and joined them in pilfering chocolate chips. Trying to look mysterious and daring, exaggerating his movements, he winked at them playfully whenever he snatched himself another chip. Junior and Jenny giggled uncontrollably at his antics in between squirreling away more chocolate for themselves.

His mood turned lighter and more relaxed than in a long time. The chocolate chips tasted good. Father and daughters laughed happily together, thick as thieves, having sweet fun on a sugar rush high. 

Alma smiled at them fondly.

~ ~ ~ 

Her smile soon enough wilted and died when Ennis asked for some of the cookies to take along on his fishing trip. Secretly he figured Jack’d always had such a sweet tooth, the milk chocolate chips would make him smile.

Reluctantly Alma handed her husband a small bagful of her cookies.

He couldn’t read her expression. It had a strange hint of disappointment and exasperated accusation that he could see no particular reason for. It wasn’t as if he was taking the whole cookie jar along, after all. It had to be that she disliked him taking time off. They were behind on the bills. She always nagged him about that.

“Well, I hope that in exchange you'll manage to actually bring some trout home this time,” Alma muttered in parting, turning away, bending over her washing-up.

“Sure,” he replied, his thoughts already out the door and away from there. Away from her.

He smiled a secret and loving little smile. Not just whiskey now. His Jack had a chocolaty treat coming.

~ ~ ~ 

While driving to their meet-up place, Ennis let himself envisage just how much Jack ’d like the cookies. He imagined feeding Jack small bits, one at the time, baiting and teasing him, breaking chocolate chips free and watching them melt between Jack’s warm lips. In his mind’s eye he was licking chocolate off, chasing the last liquid traces inside of Jack’s mouth, sharing the sweetness swirling on that clever, enticing tongue.

Ennis thought about getting his own fingers sticky with chocolate, and Jack sucking it off, slowly and firmly, one finger at the time…..

It grew hot in the truck. Ennis was sweating. He needed to think of something else, or he’d drive right off the road.

Deliberately he turned to more sobering thoughts - that church picnic.

He sighed.

Each picnic was an ordeal. Last time he’d even had to cut short his time with Jack to get home to one. But he went along willingly because his girls loved the outings. They blended right in with the other kids, but he himself felt conspicuous. Different. He always worried the fire and brimstone crowd would somehow see right through him to the shameful secret inside.

It wasn’t an entirely rational fear, he told himself, for he looked pretty much like any other family guy there.

Still he couldn’t shake it.

He figured the tense nervous feeling was a good thing. It kept him alert, reminded him to never slip up one inch in keeping his two lives carefully apart.

And yet here he was, bringing along Alma’s cookies to Jack, cookies made while his sweet darlin’ daughters giggled alongside.

Sudden anxiety gripped him. Were his two lives getting too close to overlapping?

 _Sugar and spice and all things nice._ According to the old nursery rhyme that’s what little girls are made of. And sure enough, his little girls provided the gentle milk chocolate sweetness of carefree laughter and domestic comfort in his life.

The protective tenderness and affection he felt for Junior and Jenny could no more be separated from his heart than the sugar could be culled out of Alma’s chocolate chips.

Still, it was his secret not-so-little darlin’ who provided all the qualities of spice in his life. Nothing tasted as good as life when Jack was around. Without him, living would be dull and without distinction. Every day would offer the same pale monotony. Every night would hold dreary desperation. Nothing was as rich and fulfilling as the passion he experienced with Jack. Nothing could offer such vitality and joy as their every moment together.

Chocolate - or spice?

There was no comparison. No competition. He craved and needed both. The girls and Jack brought different flavors to his life. But however much he wished for all of it, all the time, they could never be allowed to mix. Blending the tastes would soon enough leave him with nothing but the sour and bitter bile of sorrow and regret. Ashes and dust in his mouth.

He shuddered.

He’d lose everything. He’d lose all of them. He had to be careful. Quit the wishful thinking. No sweet life with Jack. The occasional secret spice would have to do.

This was his one unshakable truth.

~ ~ ~ 

Later, when he stopped the car to take a leak, he broke the cookies into bits, leaving the crumbs for the birds of the sky and the humble critters of the wayside.

It was necessary. He needed to remind himself firmly of irrevocable reality. He felt he'd been on the verge of slipping.

His milk chocolate and his spice belonged to separate lives, separate worlds, different times and places, forever.

But there was a decidedly bittersweet tang of opportunity lost and hope denied as he licked the last lingering residue of delicious chocolate crumbs off his fingers.


End file.
